Sluggy Freelance

Or maybe she just doesn't know how she really feels, and she wants to give herself the chance to find out first.

That we don't know what she considers her "type" (bottom-middle panel of Jan 24 strip) doesn't necessarily mean that she doesn't know. I think she's just genuinely not interested in him in a romantic manner, but couldn't realize that while she was under mind control. IIRC she didn't show any particular interest in him in that way prior to the order from Hereti.

And Oasis suggests that Riff not ram her brains out in front of her fiancé. I'm enjoying this Oasis.

Although, is it just me, her facial expressions, or is she looking visibly older in the final panels?

I think it's just her facial expressions, but I wouldn't put money on it.

Also, is she just messing with Riff, or does she still consider herself engaged even though she doesn't love Torg anymore? I mean, I guess this isn't necessarily the time or place to figure out such things, but in classic Sluggy tradition, the answer gives me more questions.

Also, in terms of the questions Schlock had, I did just realize a possibility... Dr. Steve was originally from the future... or at least a future, and fell through Timeless Space and came out 20-odd years ago. That's why his science is so much further ahead than anyone else's. Geez, I'm just full of WMG about the comic of late.

Make it a loop. Dr. Steve's clone from the future. Or one of the ones we saw.

Poor Frog...

You have to admire Kusari's use of Exact Words there. The reason she couldn't open the door was because she sabotaged the controls.

Damn... I don't even know what Kusari is after anymore.

Kusari, weird girl

Channeling their inner Riff.

There's no possible way this conversation could come back to bite me in the ass!

Oh, so is that what Kusari was after all this time? I underestimated her.

Direct image link because I can't figure out the new site.◊ Shareholders tried to burn everything when it looked like they lost Schlock. Whether they knew he wasn't dead and were staging a coup or were genuinely in panic-mode, who knows, but Kusari had her own opinion on the matter.

Huh... now I'm more-than-idly wondering if, in 4U City, Kusari was one of the major factions in the R&D Wars. By herself.

For the current strip, click on "View in Archives" and you'll get a link like this. If you scroll to another strip in the archives, you'll notice that the URL changes to reflect where you are.

It's a stupid way to set up an archive. Every other webcomic in existence has a simple "click here to go back one strip" button.

The parallax space station is cool though.

I still can't figure out the archive even with Fuzzy's advice, so another direct image link.◊

Kusari kills everyone in the lab, then Schlock comes back online and starts giving her orders again. But now she's gotten a taste of some kind of freewill (and fear of being destroyed as obsolete trash), so she's been loopholing her orders. Is that right?

And here I just showed up to provide the archive link.

Yeah, that's about the size of it, I think. That and before, there wasn't a direct threat to her survival, and no vague direct order from above that lets her override the other programming. I like the touch of her eating the finger sandwiches impaled on the employees face. Strange girl, Kusari...

@793 Well... if I were to venture a guess... Kusari is trying to rebel and become the main player in the world, taking over Oasis' weaponry, the DFA, the whole nine yards. She bided her time before in order to wait for everything to be in place. She still obeyed the last time Hereti-Corp disappeared because the other elements she needed to become an effective all-powerful dictator weren't in place. Now that they are, Kusari is going to Kill Em All before they can retake control.

Schlock is still the wild card in all this. It seems that he always has an escape clause out. I can't believe that he's fully cornered yet.

Figured out the archive system, it's still stupid. Torg manages to do a lot of damage to Schlock's satellite because Schlock has just refused to learn his lesson about inflatable technology.

Took me a bit to understand why Gwynn locked Zoe out. Eventually realized that Gwynn saw that the ship's about to get fluxed, and wants Zoe far enough away from the ship to dodge the AoE.

So a lot of stuff has happened, but the most relevant is that magic doesn't exist outside the atmosphere, so Chaz is dying. In a few decades.

This is the most tragic thing to ever happen in this comic

Surprisingly subtle effect on Panel 2.